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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25872229">In Kind</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katydid_99/pseuds/Katydid_99'>Katydid_99</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(just assume that any time I write Klaus he’s nonbinary), 1960s, Alternate Universe - Canon, Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, Diego Hargreeves Gets A Hug, Diego Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Diego isn’t, Drug withdrawl, Emotional Constipation, Family Bonding, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Klaus is A Good Sibling, Klaus is used to withdrawl symptoms, Mental Hospital, Mystery Illness, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Nonbinary Character, Season 2, Season 2 spoilers, Sibling Bonding, Spoilers, The Early 60s Was Basically Diet 50s, flangst, nonbinary klaus, withdrawl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:41:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,989</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25872229</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katydid_99/pseuds/Katydid_99</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>SEASON 2!!!</p><p>“The world was ending in five days, and Diego felt terrible.”</p><p>In which Diego faces some unintended consequences of breaking out of a psych ward and Klaus repays an old debt</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Diego Hargreeves &amp; Klaus Hargreeves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>379</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>In Kind</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>If you haven’t gotten up to Episode 5 of Season 2, then turn back now for HERE BE SPOILERS!!!</p><p> </p><p>If the show runners expected me to think that Diego would be fine going cold turkey after being institutionalized, then they would be WRONG!!!!</p><p>Triggers for graphic depictions of withdrawal symptoms and references to non-consensual drug use.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The world was ending in five days, and Diego felt <em> terrible. </em></p><p>Not in the “got-stabbed-in-the-gut” way or in the “the-only-human-connection-I’ve-made-in-months-is-keeping-secrets-and-possibly-plotting-to-kill-me-and-my-family” way, though neither of those were helping the matter. All week he had felt completely awful. At first he thought it was just excess adrenaline from escaping the hospital- restlessness, insomnia, increased heart rate… it was all stuff he was used to. Then the fever set in, which was concerning, but that coincided with his and Reginald’s little impromptu family reunion. A side effect of getting stabbed. This he was also used to.</p><p>But as the days passed, the symptoms refused to go away and kept adding up. He was itchy. His joints ached. Every waking moment was at least partially devoted to trying not to throw up all over himself. Leave it to him to manage to catch the flu right before nuclear fallout, and with that being the situation, he didn’t mention it. He could wait it out. <em>Had </em>to wait it out. They had far more pressing matters to face. JFK, Dad, the apocalypse, and at the moment, seeing his entire family for the first time in far too long.</p><p>While Allison and Vanya had their teary reunion off to the side, Diego raced down the stairs and wrapped Klaus in a bone-crushing hug, the joy almost enough to drown out his migraine. He looked good; the healthiest he’d looked since they were teenagers with clean clothes and hair curling around his shoulders. He didn’t twitch or sag like he used to, but that smell…</p><p>“You’re drunk,” he growled, pushing Klaus away to an arm’s distance and scowling at his pink cheeks. Allison’s, he noticed, were similarly flushed. <em> Damn enabler. </em></p><p>Klaus smirked, a witty retort forming at his lips, then stopped and frowned. “You look like shit.”</p><p>He laughed. “Oh, wow. Whatever happened to us all getting sexier?”</p><p>“No, no, I’m serious,” his eyebrows knit together and he tried to reach for Diego's forehead. “Are you feeling okay? You look like you’re… no, that can’t be right…”</p><p>“What do I look like?” But then Five was calling for attention and the matter dropped. Five caught everyone else up to speed on what was happening, Klaus moved on to showering each of their other siblings with hugs and affection, and Diego went back to ignoring his throbbing head and aching body. Unbeknownst to him, Klaus looked his way every so often, a frown etched onto his face.</p><p>☂️☂️☂️</p><p>At some point during the night Diego woke up boiling hot with the taste of acid in the back of his throat. Trying not to disturb his wound, he clamored out of bed, staggered across the apartment, and into the tiny ugly bathroom where he immediately vomited. </p><p>Coughing, he sunk down to the floor, unable to find the energy to flush his mess. The tile was freezing against his skin. Cold enough to burn. His head was screaming with pain and at this point all he wanted was to black out and hopefully wake up feeling less awful.</p><p>“I knew it!”</p><p>He cringed in on himself as the shout reverberated around the room. “You don’t know shit, Klaus,” he groaned.</p><p>The medium padded into the bathroom on bare feet, a striped robe thrown over one of Luther’s undershirts which he appeared to be wearing as some sort of makeshift nightgown. “I knew you weren’t feeling good. If that’s shit, then… erm... then it’s shit!”</p><p>“The poet laureate of Dallas.” He grabbed the bowl of the toilet and pulled himself into a sitting position, fumbling for the lever on the toilet. “It’s just a flu. I’m fine.”</p><p>Klaus folded his arms and frowned down at him, eyes catching the light like a wild animal. “You itchy?”</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>“Are. You. Itchy? Feel like you wanna peel your skin off with a fork? Like your heart’s gonna explode if your brain doesn’t first? Like you would do literally <em> anything </em>if it meant you didn’t have to feel this way anymore?”</p><p>Diego blinked. “Wha-? How did you?”</p><p>He squatted where he stood and interrupted Diego’s questions by placing a hand on his forehead. Klaus had been cold-blooded since they were kids and delighted in surprising him and the others with his icy hands and feet. But now his sibling’s hand was roasting against his skin. Why did he feel so cold all of a sudden?</p><p>His eyebrows dipped together and he smiled sympathetically. “You’re not<em> sick,</em> Diego. You’re in <em> withdrawal.</em>”</p><p>Batting his hand away, he choked out a laugh. “You’re full of it.”</p><p>“Am I?” He plopped himself onto the tile, listing talking points off on his fingers. “You were in the loony bin for, what? Three-ish months? So that’s three months to get used to whatever they were having you take, which I’m assuming waaasss… antipsychotics? I mean, you WERE rattling on ol’ JFK’s head blowing up. Something to help you sleep, too, because obviously. And let me see... 1960s, Ratched-style healthcare, your general issues with authority… I’m gonna say there were sedatives involved? Maybe a hug-jacket or two?</p><p>”Don- Don’t call a straitjacket a ‘hug-jacket.’ It’s creepy.”</p><p>“And then you went completely cold turkey after your little jailbreak! Of course you feel like garbage! C’mon-“ he held Diego by the shoulders and helped him to a standing position. The sudden change of altitude hit like vertigo and he nearly pitched forward, but Klaus’s stance was surprisingly steady.</p><p>“What are you doing?” He slurred as Klaus slowly led him from the bathroom.</p><p>“What does it look like? I’m going to nurse you back to health! Dr. Klaus is in the case!”</p><p>Diego tried to roll his eyes, but that only made his headache worse, so he just humored him and followed him from the bathroom.</p><p>Klaus led him to the living room where a few laps lit the otherwise dark room. Elliot was at one of his many unidentifiable machines, switching between turning its knobs, jotting notes in a falling apart notebook, and taking swigs from a comically-sized cup of coffee.</p><p>He looked up as the pair entered and frowned at Klaus. “Isn’t that my robe?”</p><p>Ignoring him, Diego pushed Klaus’s hands away and stood straighter. “What are you still doing up?”</p><p>“Satellite mapping. Looking for signs of extraterrestrial life. They’re usually more active around this time.”</p><p>Klaus laughed. “You hear this ametuer? Everyone knows that aliens hang out around earth at 3:27 PM. But only on alternating Thursdays.”</p><p>Elliot went pale. “H-how do you know that?</p><p>“No matter!” Klaus grabbed Diego’s hand and dragged him over to the couch where he was promptly sat down and covered by a blanket that he totally didn’t immediately snuggle down into. “See, our little bundle of rage is a little under the weather, so I need you to be my errand boy. We’re gonna need more blankets, water, ibuprofen or aspirin or whatever, and… shit, has Gatorade been invented yet?”</p><p>“Gator-what?”</p><p>“Huh. That answers that. Well, we’re gonna need stuff with electrolytes and vitamins and shit. Like what you’d use for a hangover, but nothing with caffeine.</p><p>“I could buy some Pedialyte from the drug store. They’re open twenty-four hours.”</p><p>“Perfect! Could you?”</p><p>Elliot was already tossing a windbreaker around his shoulders, still looking started about the aliens comment. “Blankets are in the closet. I’ve got aspirin in the bathroom and I’m guessing you know where the water is?”</p><p>Klaus blew him a kiss and Elliot went from white to red as he left. Then he turned on his toes and gave Diego a kiss on the nose. “I’m gonna grab the stuff. You just sit there and look pretty.”</p><p>“Fuck you,” Diego replied, but Klaus only laughed and sauntered back into the hall.</p><p>Diego sighed and fell onto his side, snuggling deeper into the couch. <em> Withdrawal! </em>How could he have been so stupid? He thought of the pills they gave him at the hospital, red and shiny like ladybugs at the bottom of the wax paper cup. He didn’t want them. He tried to hide them away at first, smuggled into pockets and between couch cushions and pawned to other patients for whatever trinkets they had. When the aides eventually made him stop that and started watching him at medication time he tried hiding them under his tongue, but they knew that trick too. Simply put there was no way he couldn’t take the pills that didn’t lead to him getting thrown in solitary. Had they really been affecting him that much? </p><p>At least he could take those ones orally.</p><p>Klaus returned with a couple blankets tucked under his arm and a tray with a water pitcher, two glasses, and a plain bottle. “Sit up,” he chided. “You can’t drink sideways.”</p><p>That proved easier said than done. His muscles had turned to cement the second he lied down, so now moving at all felt like a demolition. He managed to get himself up on one elbow then had to take a break, surprising himself with a small sob.</p><p>His sibling sat the tray on the coffee table and was there in an instant, panicked. “Hey! Hey, it’s okay. I know this sucks but it’ll be over soon. The midpoint’s always the hardest.” He helped him sit up the rest of the way, then poured two glasses of water. He handed him one of the glasses with two aspirins. “This’ll help with the pain.”</p><p>“So would a sledgehammer at this point,” Diego retorted, but took the pills anyway. </p><p>Meanwhile Klaus took the other glas and sipped it thoughtfully. “Why were you even taking them anyway? Out of the seven of us you probably need the LEAST heavy medication to function in polite society.”</p><p>“It’s not like I had a choice!”</p><p>He rolled his eyes like Diego was the dumbest person on Earth. “Have you <em> not </em>seen ‘Girl, Interrupted?’ Here, look,” he shook another pull into his hand and threw it back with a sip of water, then opened his mouth wide for him to see. No aspirin in sight.</p><p>Diego scoffed. “They check under the tongue, jackass.”</p><p>Klaus shook his head gleefully and lifted his tongue. Diego was surprised to find that the pill wasn’t there either.</p><p>“Eeteen tha ‘ip an’ tha hums!” he slurred, mouth still open. He swiped his tongue up in front of his teeth and dislodged the slightly dissolved tablet triumphantly, then proceeded to spit it across the room. “Works every time!”</p><p>“Right. I’ll keep that in mind for the <em> next </em>time I’m institutionalized.”</p><p>He cackled madly before climbing onto the couch next to him and snuggling next to him. He had half a mind to yell at him for his bony angles digging into his skin or being too hot/too cold in general for cuddling (his own body heat was fluctuating too rapidly to tell which he was putting out), but found the slight weight against him, carrying that turned soil and electricity smell he always carried under the smell of pot and booze that was now the dominant smell (<em>he was clean he was clean thank the sun and stars he was clean</em>) was oddly comforting.</p><p>“They used a needle,” Diego admitted quietly. “Sometimes.”</p><p>In turn, Klaus went stiff and deadly quiet before responding, “I’m sorry. That wasn’t nice of them.”</p><p>“It wasn’t, was it?” Diego felt Klaus snuggle deeper. “This is though, kinda. You’re good at this.”</p><p>“Well, I learned for the best. Consider it a debt repaid.”</p><p>Now it was Diego’s turn to go too-quiet. “You shouldn’t have to pay for people to be kind to you.”</p><p>Klaus hummed noncommittedly and rested his head against his shoulder. Neither of them said anything after that.</p><p>☂️☂️☂️</p><p>Hours later Elliot returned to the two… anomalies? People? Siblings- asleep on the couch.</p><p>He left the Pedialyte on the coffee table and draped an extra blanket across them. They were going to need it.</p>
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